


Eight.

by chitincoat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Diary/Journal, Future, Gen, Outer Space, POV First Person, Science Fiction, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28339953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chitincoat/pseuds/chitincoat
Summary: “Captain, we’ve received a mayday from Malcolm CX870!”“What happened?”“I don’t know yet, sir. There’s an archive and an audio recording. It’s being converted, will be ready in a moment.”“Alright. Haven’t heard much from them for quite a while. What might have happened?”“Here, sir. Take a look.”Captain leans over the commo’s shoulder and quickly looks through the lines of the logbook records.“What the hell... Turn the audio on, Jenkins.”“Aye, sir.”And the button clicks.
Kudos: 19





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Hello there. Hey!   
> Welcome to my first work here and my first work in English in general! 
> 
> Enjoy!

“For the record. December 9th, 2097. My name is Simon Ethan Fawkes. I am 39 years old, and until this August I was just a regular vicar serving on behalf of Lyme Congregational church.”

I rapidly turn around again just to make sure I’m still alone. So far, positive. I lean towards the system mic again, trying to regain control over my painful panting. 

“I’ve been taken along as a regular reverend-crewmate to my first expedition. But... how it started is only for the protocol. In fact, I was responsible for keeping the logbook along with maintaining astronauts’ spirit.” I suppress a seizure down my throat just to be audible, and continue. “It’s 8:35 pm GMT. I believe I have just turned the only survivor on board “Malcolm CX870 “Andromeda”, sent to the outer space for exploring new territories on... ugh... on August, 29th, 2097. But not for long. I’m afraid, we have gone too far.”

_ God’s sake, I never knew recording a report might turn out so difficult...  _

I slowly close my eyes, taking one sharp breath and gradually letting the air out in a desperate attempt to calm down. Nothing can be done to save the situation and return home in one piece, I know that now. Not after what I’ve witnessed happening to the other crew members. I’m not even sure at the moment that I believe in God anymore, for He definitely isn’t there for us to do anything. But accepting things yet to come, I must at least try to transmit our story back to Earth as long as I’m breathing. 

“I’m uploading my current reports to the board computer. As long as I can, I will keep trying to send them to the nearest station along with this very recording. It seems to me that it is the only way to warn those who have this thirst for exploration — just stop! We are  _ not _ welcome.  _ It  _ _doesn’t want us here._ ”


	2. Before

_ 8 hours ago _

_ 12:36 pm, GMT_

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I flinched and turned around to spot the owner of this unpleasant whirry voice. And of course, only one person on the ship could make such a nice phrase sound so arrogantly hostile. Captain Marcus Pierce has joined me by the UV-protected porthole without being noticed, which, to be honest, was probably the least exasperating on the list of his irritating habits.

“Aye,” I nodded and once again turned my eyes to the ginormous gas sphere visible through the layers of protected glass, “But what is it, really?”

“A local sun,” he chuckled, “I’ve already loaded the profile to the system, no matches there. So, I believe you can call it Pierce’s Sun, Father.”

There was something about his expression at that very moment which made me slightly uncomfortable. He couldn’t take his eyes off so-called “Pierce’s Sun”, and for some unholy reason he sounded even more like a maniac than usual.

“Right...” I forced a smile and slightly shivered, crossing my arms in hope he wouldn’t notice, “Pierce’s Sun then, it is.”

I was just about to leave when he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulder and looked me straight in the eye as if he was trying to touch my soul with his huge colourless eyes. I froze, staring back at him in a daze and waiting for an explanation to his sudden creepy gesture, and the longer he stayed silent, the harder I frowned and the more difficult it became to breathe. Eventually, I gently moved my arm and cleared my throat to pay his attention to how inappropriate this was.

“Tell me, Father...” He didn’t seem to notice my confusion, nor has he blinked once yet, and now it was getting pretty scary, as I’ve blinked for about ten times so far. “Having travelled hundreds of thousands of miles on this ship, having seen other suns, stars and galaxies, things like this one... do you still believe in your precious Lord?”

I couldn’t but notice how venomous his words felt and how insane his gaze looked. 

_ Pity _ , I thought,  _ his megalomania has finally driven him insane.  _

“Take your hands off me, captain...” I replied warningly in a low voice, but this answer clearly didn’t work for him. 

“Do you, reverend Fawkes?!” He squeezed my shoulder so hard that I could actually feel the pain reflect somewhere in my chest. 

_ Well, I clearly do want to punch you in the face right now. _

“No less than you believe in your impunity,” I answered instead. 

“Oh, we’ll see...”

God knows how hard I was trying not to grit my teeth. Just knowing the captain during these months and occasionally talking to him was quite enough for me to be displeased, but I totally wasn’t going to experience his insanity on my own skin. I snatched my arm out of his grip and hurried towards the command centre, still feeling his murderous gaze on my back.

_ 12:43 pm, GMT._

“Captain is a complete looney. Am I the only one to notice it?” I approached my part of the console and took the logbook. 

“You’re not,” engineur-mechanic Safiya Lopez giggled from her seat. “What is it again? Did he name another cosmic object “Pierce’s something”?”

“No. I mean, yes, but...” I realised how ridiculous it must have sounded and couldn’t but chuckle. “Well, yes, but that’s not the point, you see.”

Safiya bursted out laughing. I turned around to see her get up from her chair and move towards me. 

“What is it now? Another Pierce’s piece-of-cosmic-garbage thing?”

She leaned on the wall, watching me leaf through my journal. I stopped and raised my head to face her. 

“Pierce’s Sun. But still, it’s not the case.” I got back to the logbook. “Hewas acting quite nuts. Violently grabbed my shoulder and asked a total-bullshit question, looking as mad as a hatter.”

Lopez frowned. 

“Show me.” She pointed at my shoulder, and, not without an anguished sigh, I rolled up my sleeve. 

“Jesus Christ...” she sighed, slightly touching the fresh bruise with the tips of her fingers. “Oh, Si... You know better than anyone that he’s no peach. He doesn’t like you at all. I think, despite this moment, you might be overreacting.”

“I know he’s a scumbag, a‘ight? But something’s wrong, I can tell. Just watch him, okay?” I let the sleeve loose and shook my head. “Be careful, Saf.”

I turned back to the journal again and fished the digital pen out of my pocket. ‘Course she didn’t believe me, but I was too used to trusting my guts to just ignore it.

“ _9.12.97, apx 12:45 pm. Keeping the course, no emergencies. We’ve got enough provisions for at least two more months. Capt Pierce has been acting out recently. Gonna take an eye on him. Rest of the crew are fine. We’ve reached a big star, which I believe might be the centre of a wee galaxy we’ve entered couple of days ago. Doesn’t seem dangerous from afar.”_

The journal was pretty old, coming from the beginning of previous decade. Every page had a built-in screen, so everything I handwrote would be transmitted to the board computer. Quite convenient for those who reject the all-digital world, as it at least imitated handwriting.  _ I genuinely believe that I’m the last person on this ship who still can write.  _

I softly giggled on the thought and put the journal to the pocket. It’s about time we went to have lunch; a good chance to watch the captain. 

_ 1:21 pm, GMT.  _

I watched corporal Zimmer pacing across the cafeteria for about fifteen minutes by now, and still he wouldn’t stop, nagging the autonomous kitchen to hurry up. The crew was barely able to stand this pendulum-man, as I could tell from their grumpy faces and tensed postures, and neither could I, but none of us usually was brave enough to mess with Zimmer, especially when he was already irritated. He was our chief mechanic, though everybody kept calling him by his name or his alias — corporal Zimmer.

“Klaus, would you please...” 

I could expect anyone to say that but for Cassandra Ridgeway, our pilot. Usually she was too shy to even say hello to me first, let alone confronting this walking (or pacing) muscle, but evidently, it was too much to bear even for her.

“Oh, Sandy, did I forget to ask you?” Zimmer snapped, stopping halfway.

I decided to stand for Cass and take a risk.

“Sit down, corporal, and stop being a pain in the arse,” I said as calmly as I could. 

“You’ve got too long of a tongue for a priest, reverend Douche,” he grunted. 

“Klaus. Sit,” I repeated. By that moment I was completely ready to wipe the blood off my face, but he suddenly giggled in a very arrogant way and sat down.

“Happy?” He inquired with a despicable grin. 

“Aye, thanks.”

The look I spotted on Cass‘s face at that moment has immediately recouped my risk. I smiled softly and then turned my eyes to captain Pierce storming into cafeteria as if he was chased.

“Provisions compartment detached,” he reported, panting heavily. 

“It WHAT?” Zimmer jumped from his seat and took off bouncing all over again. 

“Detached,” Pierce repeated, throwing a devastating look at the corporal. The crew went so silent that I could swear I could hear their tensed breathing even from my farthest corner.

“How on Earth could it detach?! It’s securely built into the eastern bay!”

_ Really far from Earth... _ I thought, trying to fight a throbbing panic in my chest. 

“Well, it detached, too,” Pierce concluded, crossing his arms.

The silence went deafening. Everyone was just staring at one another trying to digest the news. A minute felt like eternity before Safiya raised her voice. 

“Wait, isn’t there supposed to be spare food in the baggage compartment?”

_God’s sake, it is_ , I thought, already taking out the journal and starting to page it through to the very beginning in order to find the list of everything we’ve taken on board. 

“I shall go and check,” Saf exhaled quietly while getting up. 

“No need,” Zimmer said, throwing a dark gaze at me, “Let reverend Douche look it up in his douchebook.”

“Already looking,” I replied, totally ignoring his pathetic attempt to offend me with his primal name-calling which he genuinely considered hilarious. 

“No need in abusing Simon, Klaus, he appears to be the most useful member of the crew at the moment.” Instead of heading for the baggage compartment, Saf approached me and sat by my side, while I was looking through a fifteen-page list of supplies. 

“Belay that, both of you!” Pierce barked. “Focus on what’s important. What did you find, Fawkes?”

“Nothing so far, the list is humongous. Give me a minute.”

Pierce growled, but didn’t return me anything.

The silence didn’t stay for long. As I was still looking for the spare food on the list _(_ _ ten outer-space suits, twelve first-aid kits, three containers of toilet paper...) _ , the whispering went on. 

_ Forty tubes of toothpaste, four packs of spare clothes for each crew member, twenty containers of provisions, including... That’s it! Oh, no, yikes, that’s the food for outer-space folks now... _

“Guys!” I raised my head to the sharp voice of Matthias, our commo. “Where are Luke and Sam? Have you seen them?”

The crew were shaking their heads, I heard one or two “negatives”, and only then I started thinking properly to realise that it didn’t mean anything good. Overall, we had two options now: either they were hurt (no one really wanted to take “dead” as a variant), or they detached the eastern bay for some reason, which seemed even more absurd. Having caught this thought I doubted my own sanity for a moment. 

Eight pairs of eyes including mine were throwing glances at each other like in some weird game of hot potato. I caught Pierce’s look and squinted, in order to see him better. Something has changed in the very look of him, but I could not say for sure, what exactly it was.

We both froze. Our hot potato suddenly turned into a staring contest, where no one could afford blinking. I remembered his gaze back this morning and it right away sent shivers down my spine. He definitely wasn’t going to lose, drilling right inside my head with his glare, and for some reason I just couldn’t take my eyes off his. There was something extraterrestrial about his look, which literally petrified me.

I came to only when I suddenly heard Zimmer’s loud voice and spotted his face right in front of me. 

“I’m talking to you! What are you, deaf or dumb?” He spitted, leaning towards me and hence looming over me. My whole body flinched, and I stared back at him, startled, like a deer in the headlights.

“Douchebag.” He strongly pointed his bony finger into my chest. “Douchebook.” Now he poked the logbook in my hands. “Continue.”

“Ah... Yeah, right...” I sharply shook my head and turned my eyes back to the book, when I suddenly noticed Saf keeping her hand on my lap all this time. I turned to face her, still trying to normalise my heartbeat. I could guess that I still looked quite miserable, so I forced a smile, which clearly didn’t work out as planned. For couple more seconds she glared at Zimmer with clear reproach, and only then turned to me. 

“Si... are you okay?” She sounded actually worried, which didn’t gladden me at all. 

“Sure, ‘course.” I nodded softly and turned my attention back to the journal. Probably, I didn’t convince her, or, surprise-surprise, I wasn’t the only one to notice my slightly shaken hands, for Saf didn’t take her hand off my lap, but squeezed it a wee bit harder.

I was lucky to finally find the information about spare supplies almost right away, as the tension only grew and I could feel it with my skin, for everybody was waiting for me to say something, and everybody was already on edge.

“Right, ahem... so, two mid-containers of spare rations are stored in the baggage comp, sector C, and one large in sector F,” I concluded, looking further through the list to make sure there were no more containers, “That’s it, I’m afraid.”

“Scheiße!” Zimmer started pacing again, but this time no-one would even think of stopping him. Hearing him cuss in his mother tongue was quite a sign, or, I’d say, an emergency light. For the first time ever I’d tend to totally agree with Klaus. “God, that’s barely enough for a week! What do we do? Cap?” 

He stopped abruptly, and now all eyes were pinned to Pierce.

He hesitated, frowning hard, and cleared his throat. 

“So, we must separate. I will take Lopez and head for the storage,” he looked through the crew and stopped at Matthias and our navigator, Keith, “Giovanni and Jefferson — to the security. Check the cameras to look through the events. Ridgeway and Fawkes — trace the lost guys. Find them on a map, then go and check. Zimmer, Collins — engines. Redirect the energy to compensate the loss. Did I make myself clear?”

“What?” Saf got up and moved towards Pierce. “It’s illogical, captain, we don’t need a mechanic in engines right now, two pilots will do. And if I go with Simon, I will be able to see what happened to the eastern bay!” Knowing Saf, I hurried to follow her in order to keep her from an unnecessary fight. 

“Negative,” Pierce shook his head, “I’ve already decided.”

“The hell you decided! Have you ever tried to think? Might turn out useful, tho.” I could swear I could spot a small flame on Zimmer’s bald head. He stepped towards Pierce, clenching his fist. “She’s right, it at least makes sense. Who put you in charge if you’re daft as a brush?”

“Watch it, Zimmer! Or else...” They dangerously moved towards each other, and I could tell that a second or two kept them from an actual fight. I exhaled sharply, overcoming the itchy Pierce-related anxiety, and jammed myself between them, slightly pushing both of their chests aside. 

“Guys!” I addressed, “Enough. It’s the wrongest time ever.”

It didn’t have the effect I expected, but at least they stopped where I put them. At that point, sandwiched between two aggressive jocks, I suddenly felt as thin and fragile as never before. 

“Get out of the way, Fawkes, I’ll punch him in the face and we’ll be good,” Zimmer grunted, snapping his fingers. 

“Oh, please, pal...” I looked up to him. The bloke was about 6’7”, which was nearly 7 inches taller than me, and the way he loomed over has actually made me quite nervous. 

I stared him in the eye, giving him the most confident and at the same time pleading look I was capable of, and only when I found the retreat there, I turned to Pierce. 

“We’re good, ain’t we?”

Pierce actually pierced me with his eyes and only then nodded. 

“We are.”

When I seized the opportunity to look closer, I couldn’t help noticing the change in his eyes, and I don’t even mean his look. His very eyes turned red since the last time I met him. Capillaries bursted, as if he was crying all night or lifting tremendous weights, and his stare has turned almost blank, as though he was an insensate beast. My misgivings kept growing more and more intense.  _If he’s not actually taken by some cosmic disease, he’s totally breaking records in his madness today_ ,  I thought.

“A’ight.” I finally took my hands off their chests and stepped back. “What Lopez said actually makes sense, so maybe...”

“No,” Pierce interrupted, “Move. Let’s not waste any more time.” He turned away and headed towards the gate. “Come on, we need to change into our outing suits to be visible.”

Well, despite all the pricking, that actually sounded like a good idea. 

_ 2:16 pm, GMT.  _

_About an hour ago we’ve lost major part of our provisions. Eastern bay somehow detached from the ship. We’ve separated into four groups, heading different points: Pierce, Lopez — baggage comp (provs), Giovanni, Jefferson — sec (cams), Zimmer, Collins — engines, Ridgeway and I — gate 58, Luke and Sam’s last location. I’ve got a bad feeling — gate 58 is too close to the eastern bay for it to be coincidental. We’re wearing outing suits for me to trace everyone on the map. Somehow, I can’t trace Pierce‘s suit. It doesn’t feel right._   
  


A few minutes ago I copy-pasted the map to the next page and activated the tracing system, so now we could see the coloured dots, moving slowly through the corridors and compartments and leaving coloured lines after them.

“Are you taking any weapon?” Cass asked, attaching a holster to her clothes. 

“Ach... aye, I’ll take a knife just in case.”

“A knife?”She chuckled nervously. “What a weird vicar you are.”

“Quite weird, indeed,” I nodded, taking the short bowie knife out of my bag and fixing the sheath on the belt. “But keep in mind that we’re not at home. Usually, vicars do not keep logbooks either, but here we are.”

“Right...” she smiled. “Do normal priests swear that much?”

“Don’t think so.” I returned her a smile and headed towards the gate. “Right, chop-chop!”

***

We left the closet and moved down the corridor leading to junction four, which would let us into the corridor eight, leading its way to gate fifty-eight. I always hated walking these corridors, ‘cause they were narrow and very cold, but now, thanks to skintight thermal suit, I at least wasn’t shivering.

“Hey, Si… Si!” I turned around to see that Cassandra was already a couple feet behind. “These are quite long legs you have there! Wait.”

“Ah, right, sorry. Got carried away a bit.” I slowed down and waited for her to catch up.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find them, Si.” She touched my shoulder, but I only winced.

“Will we, Cass?” I frowned and turned my face to her. “It’s not that I want to mock you or anything, just let’s be realistic. Their comlinks went off at the same time right at the gate of the departed bay, and they have been lost for about two hours by now. No signs of them on the ship. Do you really believe in coincidences like this?”

“I…” She went silent, not being able to find the answer. “Yeah. Probably. But if they’d been inside the bay, wouldn’t their comlinks still be traceable?”

“Nay, how? The radio works due to the control centre transmitters. Bay — detached, connection — lost. The end.”

“Right…” She nodded. “No offence, but you have quite little faith for a priest.”

“Oh, okay. Look,” I sighed and stopped. God knows how tired I was of hearing this argument. “Yes, I  _ am _ a priest. And yes, I  _ do _ believe in God. But I’m no fool, Cass. Why do everybody find it necessary to rub my nose in this every time? Surprise, I’ve also lived a life, and not the easiest one, and I also have some experience. You know what else do I have? Logical thinking. Didn’t you think I might have chosen this path for a reason? I…” I realised how the ire which has accumulated inside me for all these months without proper relief was pressing poor Cassandra at already quite a difficult moment, so I just pressed my eyes with my fingers instead, trying to settle down. “Ugh... Sorry.” 

I went on, this time keeping a slower pace. 

Another five minutes went in silence. I already started feeling guilty, and just I wanted to apologise again, she raised her voice. 

“Sorry, Si, I never knew it was personal.”

I froze for a second. 

“What?”

“I mean, the thing you said about choosing this path. I didn’t know.”

I turned around to see her face and gave her a slightly sore grin.

“Sure thing. Why would you, I’ve never told anyone.”

“Well, exactly. You know everything about us, but we know nada about you. Who  are  you, really? I mean, I know your name, I know that you’re thirty-ish, and that you’re a vicar from Southern England or something, and that’s it.”

“Forty-ish,” I corrected mockingly.

“Ah. Cool. Any more surprises?” She crossed her arms and looked at me grumpily. 

“Sure thing,” I replied, sublimating my anxiety and irritation into an undisguised mocking, “Right arm. Hundred percent prosthetic. Blackish hair? Naturally, I’m ginger. Eyes? Lenses. Wanna touch my cheek to make sure the stubble is also drawn?” I stretched my neck as if I was truly offering to touch my face. 

“Simon!”

“What?”

“I’m serious. And you’re being defensive.”

“I’m not.”

“Uh-huh. Okay.”

“Nice talk.”

This time she remained silent longer than before. We stopped at gate fifty-three, and I fished the journal out of the fanny pack to check on others’ location. According to the map, Saf and, probably, Pierce, although his suit I couldn’t track, have already brought one container from sector F to cafeteria, and now they were heading for sector C. Giovanni and Jefferson were still in a couple of gates from security room, and Collins and Zimmer were already at the lower engine. Everything went quite well so far. 

“But still,” Cassandra started over, while I was entering the security code at the gate lock panel, “What are you hiding?”

_ Oh Lord, give me strength... Where did her shyness go? _

I sighed miserably and pressed the “enter” button. Doors bleeped open. 

“Nothing,” I replied, “I just  _ really  _ don’t like talking about it.”

“Why so?”

“Oi, for f-“ I inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly. “Do you  _ really _ want to discuss it?  _ Now? _ ”

“Why not? We’ve got plenty of time, four gates to go.”

I swinged my head and accepted the inevitable. 

“A’ight. Shoot,” I said and moved forward. 

She hesitated for a moment, but then caught up on me again. 

“So... How did you end up being a vicar?”

I flashed her a glance without holding my attention to any details and made a slightly uncomfortable sound. 

“Right off the bat, huh?”

She frowned. 

“I mean, you are the direct opposite of an image of a vicar I had. You’re very clever, quiet, but you are quite something, though.”

“Meaning?..”

“Well, you’re not the one to be trifled with — you can definitely bite a head off. Sharp tongue, mysterious look. And you’re just... just nice and kind, at the same moment. You’re an enigma, Simon, my brain just can’t solve this puzzle. I doubt that they teach that in parish schools.” She thought for a second. “By the way, I believe it’s the exact reason Pierce and Zimmer can’t stand you. They can’t read you and therefore prefer to hate.”

I pressed my lips together, processing her words. I’ve actually never thought about it from this angle, but what she said made sense in an oddly satisfying way. 

“May be,” I nodded. “Though you’re right, actually. I haven’t been to a parish school, neither have I been a priest for long. I used to work as a civilian consultant with South Mercia police. Homicide department.”

“No way!” She stopped abruptly, and I had to do the same and turn towards her. 

“Homicide department! Are you kidding?”

“I wish.”

We went on, walking up to the next gate.

“I’ve seen a lot. Serial killers’ work, gunshots, stabbed people. You know, all that stuff. Pretty traumatising if you don’t put your shields up.” I started entering another security code, meanwhile plunging in my thoughts. 

“That explains a lot...” Cassandra’s look went a bit different. Felt like she started respecting me more for what I’ve said or had done. I wished it would be worth appreciating, but I had a different opinion on that one. “But how did you end up a priest, then? What happened?”

I desperately rolled my eyes. On the one hand, I’ve never spoken about it since... well. Maybe telling someone I trusted might take at least part of the weight off my chest. But on the other, some defence mechanism made it difficult to just say it, words got stuck in my throat. 

“Ach... well, I...” I frowned painfully as if I was about to be beaten by a stroke, “The... ahem, well, there was a woman. My companion, a detective-sergeant.” Her face immediately rose in front of my eyes, and I looked down, staring somewhere around Cass’s knees. “We were... a thing, I guess.” I finally pressed “enter”, and another door bleeped open, letting us into the next corridor. 

“Aye, and... well, something happened. She got shot, in fact. And I couldn’t manage to save her. So, I decided to quit and find a place where I could actually help at least someone. That’s it.”

I avoided looking at her, but she didn’t say anything, and I felt slightly relieved that she wouldn’t want to continue this conversation. At least, I hoped so. We’ve reached gate fifty-seven in a complete silence, and only when I started entering the code, she spoke again. 

“Is that why you said that Luke and Sam couldn’t be saved? Because you hoped to save her and you didn’t?”

I turned towards her and didn’t give her any answer, but I guessed that my look, which, I bet, was quite anguished at that moment, spoke for me rather explicitly. She looked me straight in the eye, and I noticed a tear on her cheek. 

“Oh, Cass...” Guilt and regret punched me so hard that I could feel it almost physically. I sighed and shook my head. “It’s over, okay? It’s been about ten years now, so...”

“And still you bleed.” She sniffed and rubbed her shoulders. I didn’t even open my mouth to object yet, as she continued. “And don’t tell me you don’t. I’m not blind. I mean, I’ve always seen something, but I just could never guess...”

I sighed again and moved a bit closer to console her by putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“Cass, I didn’t mean to...” I didn’t finish the sentence, as she suddenly wrapped me in her arms and pressed me towards her chest. 

“Oh- I...”

“Shut up, Simon.” She sniffed again somewhere around my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. But it’ll heal, I promise.” 

I chuckled, awkwardly patting her back. 

“I know. It’s okay, Cass, really. I’m fine.”

I backed up, and she immediately let go of me. I exhaled with relief. Physical contact, no, compassion in general still was quite uncomfortable to me. No surprise, after years of being all alone on purpose. 

“We’ve got job to do, remember?”

“Right.” She nodded and wiped her tears. “Thank you for sharing.”

The last door opened up, giving us a clear view of the scene. The first thing I noticed was the electronic lock on the gate fifty-eight — it was ripped open, and the wires were poking in all directions. I couldn’t believe my eyes — who or what could even do that? The locks were very solid, and, moreover, shock-resistant. Whoever or whatever did this must have had an incredible strength. I stretched my arm as a barrier in order not to let Cass go first, but, evidently, she wasn’t going to.

“Christ, who could’ve done this?..” 

“Exactly. What the...” I squatted and picked up a stray piece of console. I turned it in my hand and noticed a spot, which clearly looked like blood. I looked around, finishing the very phrase in my head, and saw a few more spots on the floor.

“Stay close, Cass.” I got up and looked down the blood trace as far as I could. It was leading to engines. 

Cassandra followed my look and grabbed me by the hand to get my attention. 

“Si, engines!” She whispered. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

“No, Si! Collins and Zimmer!”

And now I’ve totally got it. 

“Bollocks...”


	3. The emergency

_ 2:58 pm, GMT. _

_ No signs of Luke and Sam, but we’ve found traces of blood near gate 58. The door lock was smashed. No idea who could have done that — the strength must have been tremendous. Though judging by the amount and the look of blood, it must be human who cut or smashed his hand while breaking the lock. Doesn’t make sense. The drops are quite large in diameter, hence they must have fallen from the height of apx 3”-3”5’. The blood trace led us to the lower engine. _

We’ve reached the engines gate and I signalled Cass to hide behind the wall on the left, while I stood on the right. 

“Get the gun ready, just in case.” I said in a low voice, nodding at her holster. 

“I can’t shoot!” She whispered with her eyes wide open. 

“Wh... what?” I couldn’t believe my ears. I didn’t want to admit that the feeling which bursted deep inside me was not anger, but fear, so I sublimated again. “Bloody hell, why have it then?”

“I messed up, okay? I didn’t know I would actually need it!”

I inhaled and held my breath for a second. 

“Give me the gun,” I demanded. She hesitated for a second, but then handed it to me with a great relief in her eyes. I grabbed the gun and took a tactical stance, ready to come in. God knows I never wanted to hold this thing again, but things were getting too tensed to let past traumas lead me. 

I felt like a character of a centuries-old joke. 

_ A priest walks into the bar, and the bartender goes: “No guns allowed!” _

In any other situation I might have even chuckled.

“Do you know how to use a tactic knife?” I asked, already taking it out of the sheath. 

“Not really...” Cass tuck her head into her shoulders looking as scared as a kitten. 

I sighed and handed her the knife, demonstrating the grip. 

“Look. Nothing specific. You hold it like this, and stab with the sharp end. That’s it.”

She carefully took the knife and looked at me with a slight note of shame. 

“Let’s switch positions,” I whispered, “Three basic rules: follow me. Keep your head down. Shush. Clear?”

She nodded, and only then I entered the code to get in. 

The lights were off. Lower engine compartment was illuminated only with a wee light from the panels by the farthest wall. The way from the gate was totally bathed in darkness. The engine worked very silently, so every step we took echoed from the metal walls. I squatted and pulled the logbook out to use a dull light from digitalised pages to see where the blood trace ended. And once again I was thankful to the inventor of the journal — adding adjustable illumination into the paper-feeling pages has appeared to be a good idea not only for night writing, but also for cases like this, when you don’t want to attract any possible attention with a torch. 

Apparently, the bleeding had stopped there. I could spot couple more dots on the floor, but nothing more. Upon getting up and putting the logbook back to the pack, I slowly moved forward, constantly checking on Cass and trying not to lose the sight of her. The closer we got to the panels, the more intensely my gut signalled me to back off. I raised a gun ready and stepped into the highlighted area. Something sloshed under my foot, and I froze. The smell of iron hit me with a profound realisation even before I looked down — I stepped into a blood pool. 

I threw my hand in the air signalling Cass to stop and slowly turned my head, following the blood trail. At the very moment I saw a body sitting against the wall, my skin went covered with goosebumps from head to toe. 

“Holy crap...” I exhaled. My hands slowly went down against my will, and cold shivers went down my spine, when I recognised the deceased. It was Mike Collins, the second pilot, who went to the engines along with Zimmer. His face was mutilated so much that I would’ve never recognised him but for a big tattoo on his neck. 

“Simon, what is it there?” I heard Cassandra’s trembling voice. Just a second later, before I opened my mouth to answer, I heard her scream right behind my back. I rapidly turned around and caught her, covering her mouth with my hand. 

“Shhh!” I hissed, holding her tight. “Quiet. Whoever did this might still be here.”

I put all the possible confidence into my voice to calm her down, whereas I myself couldn’t stop staring at what used to be Mike. It’s not that I was really close to him, or that I was seeing a dead body for the first time in my life, I’ve seen plenty, but...  _ nothing like this. _

I slowly let go of Cass and moved closer to the body, squatting right in front of it. 

“Si... Si, please...” Cass sobbed quietly from behind, trying to pull my hand back. “Please, let’s leave... we need to get out of here...” 

“Shh... Ridgeway, please, give me a second, there’s something wrong.”

Mike’s body had no eyes. They seemed burned out, but... as if from inside. I frowned hard and glanced at his trunk. A piece of something rebar-like was sticking out of his chest for approximately a finger length, about an inch to the left from the centre. 

_ They poked his heart with this stick like a kebab...  _ I thought with a detached revulsion. 

I was about to get up, when I heard a loud noise outside. A large piece of cosmic garbage must have bumped into the ship, and I felt really unsafe, like something was about to fall on my head and kill me right away. I raised my head and viewed walls and ceiling. Large metal pipes, conjunctions and energy panels were placed all over. Pipes led to six tanks filled with fuel. I realised that it definitely wasn’t the best place to stay. 

“Come on.” I grabbed Cass by the elbow and led her towards the gate. Before we’ve reached the door, a tremendous hit shook the whole ship. We both fell, ending up in different corners of the compartment. The board system activated the siren, all the illumination went off, and the red emergency lights started flashing. Something broke, I heard a loud crack. I got up and found Cassandra. 

“Cass, run!” I shouted, trying to top the siren. 

“I can’t! Si, I’m stuck!”

_ God’s SAKE! _

I stifled the inner panic and raced out towards her, but another hit, much stronger than the previous one, threw me back again. My ears bursted with deafening ringing, and having failed to get up again, I went all blank and passed out. 

***

When I came round, I had much trouble settling the picture back together. Everything was revolving, and I felt so sick that I was about to throw up. I definitely would though, if only I had eaten something today. It was extremely hot, I was all damp in sweat, which immediately told me that I’ve been out for quite some time. And also, that the fire was quite close.

_ The WHAT?! _

I shook my throbbing head and tried to get up, but my legs were too limp and unsteady, so I had to lean on the wall. 

“Cass?” I called. Well, this definitely didn’t sound like my voice — weak, cracked and trembling. I staggered forward, trying to see at least something through the smoke. 

“CASS!”

No reply. I stumbled and, failing to maintain the balance, fell to my knees again, and a sharp pain bursted somewhere around my stomach. 

That’s when I saw Cassandra. She was lying a few feet away from me on her back with her eyes wide open, and a huge piece of metal was pressing lower part of her body into the floor. Another piece was sticking out of her... gosh. I’m no doctor, but she was dead, it was more than obvious. The scene felt so familiar that it right away brought my past back to me. It felt like way too much to handle. 

Desperation overflowed me. I started suffocating hysterically, trying to inhale hot, heavy smoke, but it stopped somewhere in my throat and went back out with a cough. 

I crawled back to the door, grabbing the gun on my way, and tried to get up again, fighting my own body, which was almost convulsively shaking all over. I heard a loud crack, which in this particular moment could mean literally anything. My gut told me that it must have been a fuel tank, deforming due to the heat. On the verge of consciousness, I tried to enter the security code, but the door signalled error, which meant that someone had locked it from the outside.

Right there at that very moment I realised that I would never leave the room. 

My head was empty. I used to think that a dying person sees his whole life before the end. I don’t know, like... A light at the end of a tunnel? Maybe I expected the Angel of Death, or something. Like _‘tell me, Allfather, shall I step Up or Down?’_ But in reality, I still somehow stood my ground quite literally. Sounds and vision were merely fading out.

Suddenly, I felt a very strong grip on my shoulder. Someone yanked me backwards, and then I heard a deafening blast, but it was muted as if I was underwater. Probably, I was lying on the floor again. I couldn’t move, and blurred red sparkles were the only thing I could see. Several minutes, or a couple of seconds, I couldn’t really tell, and strong hands sharply but carefully grabbed my limp body, and I blacked out again. 

***

I heard a wee noise in a distance, though it was a bit muted by the irritating ringing in my ears. I tried to focus on the sound, still feeling quite rollercoasted. My head was splitting, which along with all the spinning was making me terribly nauseous, and I also could feel a dull pulsation in my abdomen. Also, my limbs were freezing, so I could barely feel them. Quite some time had passed before I realised that someone was pressing their warm hand to my head somewhere in the temple area. I exhaled abruptly and finally managed to open my eyes to find myself lying in some dark room. As I could guess, I was in the living compartment.

“Thank God...” This voice, as well as the hand pressing a cloth to my temple, appeared to belong to Saf. “Hey, buddy.”

“Hey.” I struggled to sit up. Saf reached out to help me, and soon I was sitting, leaning on the wall and witnessing the disturbing amount of blood on my suit and bedsheets. I rose my hand and took the cloth myself, trying to fight the sudden dizziness. 

“Careful,” Saf said, gently pressing her hand to my abdomen. I also touched it, finding an emergency biochip bandage with my fingers. It explained the numbing feeling and the fact I wasn’t agonised — the anaesthetic worked quite well. Judging by the size of the bandage, the wound was quite large. 

“What happened?” I winced painfully, rubbing my eyes with fingers, slightly covered in dried blood. 

“Klaus managed to pull you out of the lower engine seconds before it exploded,” she explained, “We were looking for Collins when we heard the siren and ran to see if we could do anything. Klaus opened the door and figured out that the tanks were on edge. Two plus two, he rushed to take you out before I realised anything.”

I frowned, struggling to remember the last moments before I passed out. Memories blurred, and there were only two things I could vaguely remember: the heat and a steel grip on my shoulder, which dragged me somewhere. And also the desperate feeling of an upcoming inevitable end.

“You scared the hell out of me, Si,” Saf sighed, “You went so pale, I really thought you were dead.”

“So did I.” I took the cloth away, trying to flip it over to more or less clean side. Though there weren’t any, it was completely soaked in blood. 

“Are you okay? And Zimmer?”

“Ah, yeah, don’t worry. We managed to duck.”

“Good,” I nodded.

I was just about to ask where Cass was, when I suddenly remembered the scene. My eyes opened wider, and I right away felt my whole body tense. I turned away from Saf and nervously patted my belt. I froze when I realised that the fanny pack was gone, hence was the logbook, aka the last hope to clear my head and figure out what happened.

“Hey, Si, shhh, it’s okay,” Saf laid her hands on my fitfully tensed shoulders. “Look at me.”

I clearly wasn’t going to. I didn’t want her to see how terrified and helpless I was at the very moment. It was temporary, I just needed some time to settle it all down, but Saf apparently wasn’t intended to wait. 

“Simon. Look at me.”

When I disobeyed again, she put her hand on my cheek and turned my face towards her forcibly, but still gently.

“Simon, Klaus saw Cass. When he was getting you out. I know, he told me,” she sighed, still keeping her hand on my face. For some reason, I felt a strong desire to snuggle my face into her hand, close my eyes and start crying like a baby, but I wasn’t that kind of person, and I didn’t want to be, so I just kept staring silently, hoping to find something in her eyes I didn’t know myself. “He said she was... well, pinned under a console. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

Her eyes went teary, but she kept maintaining the eye contact, softly caressing my cheek with her thumb. 

A deadly fight inside me, fortunately or not, ended up with winning of the good old escapist me. 

I nodded and backed off a little. 

“Aye. I know.”

The hell I knew. I knew exactly that Cassandra’s death was on my hands, which have already been covered in blood for more than ten years. But putting things like this on display wasn’t really my cup of tea. I was used to dealing with things on my own.  I was the one to help others, not vice versa, and I have never needed help. Or so I said. But, still. 

“Where’s Zimmer?” I slowly got up, fighting dizziness and nausea again, and limped towards the mirror, ignoring Saf’s humble attempt to help. 

“He returned to get your bag. We were looking for the logbook while you were out. Wanted to trace what happened.”

“How long ago?”

“Dunno. Fifteen?.. Ish.”

“Uh-huh.”

Still I was barely able to stand, but we had neither time, nor a chance to have a proper rest. I looked at my chalk-white face with deep under-eye shadows, and took a glance at a cut on my temple. The bleeding has stopped, but the cut itself was disturbingly big, which explained my overall condition pretty well.

“I need one more emergency bandage and something like aspirin. Any first aids here?”

“Yeah.” Saf looked under the bed and took out a kit. “How are you feeling?” She asked, opening the box and giving me a small band-aid and a sanitising wipe. I opened the wipe and started cleaning the blood off my face. I suppressed a firm and a bit toxic _“like shit”_ and chose a less aggressive option. 

“Been better. Will be better when I’m done.”

“Need help?”

“No.” I glanced at Saf’s worried face in the mirror and softened a little. “Thanks. Really, I can handle it. You’ve already done plenty.”

As soon as I finished cleaning up the wound, I heard the door bleep and turned towards it. Zimmer entered, holding my pack in his hand.

“Fawkes.” He seemed a bit surprised. “Good thing that you’re not dead. I thought you wouldn’t make it.”

“Aye, I did. Thanks to you.”

Zimmer chuckled. 

“If I’d recognised you I’d’ve just closed the door. Thank my bad sight.”

I smiled in return. For some reason I knew that he wasn’t genuinely trying to offend me, but just defensively pretending that everything was as fine as usual. 

“Good. If you still make fun of me, I can tell that you haven’t been infected with the same thing as Pierce.”

I turned back to the mirror and carefully attached a band-aid to the wound. Actually, the piece was quite small, so the best thing I could do was to pull the edges of the cut so that it at least wouldn’t be that wide open.

I adjusted the bandage and finally stepped back from the mirror. As soon as I took a step, I staggered due to the dizziness which hit me harder than ever, but Zimmer prevented me from humiliating but inevitable fall by catching me by the shoulders. 

“Jesus, Fawkes, just sit down, or you’ll finish what the explosion haven’t and kill yourself.”

It felt like he wanted to let go of me, but he didn’t, for which I was really grateful, for I could barely feel my legs. I instinctively latched onto his hand on my shoulder, and he slowly led me back to the bunk so I could sit. 

“Ugh, thanks...” I sat down and leaned back, closing my eyes and putting my head back, resting it on the wall. 

“You really do look like shit, Fawkes.” I felt him touch my forehead with his thumb and slightly pull my skin as if he wanted to stretch the wound. I winced, but this didn’t make me dodge or even open my eyes — I was exhausted enough to just let him do this. However, he immediately put his hand away. 

“What happened to Douche?” I softly chuckled and finally looked at him. 

“You’re so pathetic right now that I decided to go easy on you. Shouldn’t I have?”

“Nah, will do.”

“This is all real sweet, you lovebirds, but back to Pierce,” Saf intruded. She looked at me as if it was me who was a looney, not Pierce. Or as if she suddenly realised something. “Of course!”  _ Oh,  _ I thought,  _ the latter.  _

“This morning you told me that Pierce was acting weird. And then I noticed it, too. When we went to sector C, he had something like a pretty hard seizure. And he got real angry when I asked if I could help. He dropped the container and left. When I followed him, I couldn’t find him anywhere. He sort of... disappeared.”

“I told you.” I frowned a bit. “My gut tells me he is dangerous.”

“I saw him,” Zimmer nodded, “He went to lower engine when I was leaving for upper. I can agree with Simon’s infamous gut — the dude’s nuts. At least he looks like one.”

“Hold on,” I straightened. “Klaus, when you were going towards upper engine, did you see the lock on gate fifty-eight?”

“Positive. It’s ripped open. Never seen anything like this before.”

“It’s what?!” Saf eyeballed at him. 

“Aye. And moreover, me and Cass traced the blood trail to the lower. Corporal, when you left it, did you see Collins?” I tensed. 

Guessing is one thing, but knowing something for sure is the other, and, putting two and two together, I didn’t like the result at all. 

“Sure. He was stabilising the energy. Why?”

“Oh, bugger. Guys, I believe Pierce killed him.” I threw glances at both of them, and hurried to continue before they had a chance to say anything. “A-an-and I don’t know exactly, but when we entered, Collins was dead. His eyes burnt out, he was mounted on a rebar or something. I have no idea how did it happen, it was like... like... fuck, I wish I knew. Like, the rebaring I can explain, I’ve already seen that, but the eyes! It was like... like in ‘Supernatural’, when a human looked at an angel, I... hope you understand.” I stopped to catch my breath, and scanned the crewmates’ faces. Both of them were looking at me and at each other in a total shock. 

“I know, right? You think I must’ve hit my head too hard, or that I’m a lunatic, but please... just trust me. I kept the record until we went in.”

Zimmer frowned, but listened to me. He opened the fanny pack to get the logbook out. I grabbed it and opened it at the needed page.

“Look,” I said, pointing my finger into the latest record, “The blood led us to the engines. I didn’t have time to write anything after, but now I remember. We followed the trace, and it disappeared halfway to the panels in lower...” 

  
I looked at the logbook once again and decided to try and recreate what happened there to help myself remember every detail. I handed the journal to Zimmer and slowly got up. The scheme of the living compartment resembled the one of the lower engine, with this long corridor and free space at the end of it. I walked down the corridor and stopped at the very beginning. 

“So,” I said, taking the shields remote controller which would imitate a gun in my hands, “We walked there, and I traced the trail.” I counted my steps to recreate the scene with an approximate authenticity. “I sat here... illuminated the floor with the logbook, and...” I struggled to remember if there was anything else. “And here the trail ended. Yeah, and then I moved on.” I got up, slowly getting closer to the free space where Saf and Zimmer were, still holding the imaginary gun. I wasn’t looking at them, my sight was back there, in lower engine. 

“As I moved forward, I stepped into the blood pool. I stopped.” I slowly turned my head, trying to recreate the placement of the body. “And, aye, he was there.” I pointed to the wall. 

I moved closer to the imaginary body, and squatted exactly the way I did back there. I was drowned in my own memory so deep that I didn’t notice Zimmer come up and sit by my side, so I flinched a little when he spoke right above my ear. 

“That’s exactly where he was, when I was leaving,” he said, looking at me pretty intensely. I had no doubt anymore that he believed me. 

I slowly got up, and he held my elbow, as if I was going to fall again, which seemed quite close to the truth.

We all knew the truth now. We just needed to figure out what to do with it. 

_ 5:58 pm, GMT _

_Now there’s just three of us: Safiya Lopez, Klaus Zimmer and I. We know that Pierce is a murderer, and that he killed Collins. Cassandra Ridgeway is also deceased, killed by an emergency in lower engine compartment. Only one engine working, so it might not end well. We’re heading for communications to check on Jefferson and Giovanni. Their dots on the map are near gate 15. I don’t think they might be alive, they haven’t moved for a while. I’m wounded. Probably next note will be taken by either of the guys. From the communications we’ll be able to send the emergency call one more time, manually._ _ Still don’t know where Pierce is. We’re armed. _

We were slowly moving down the corridor six, going through one gate after another without a word. Everyone was equally tensed, it was quite obvious. Klaus led the way, Saf and I were following, just in case I needed help. Having lost so much blood, I couldn’t help feeling like a burden for the crew, but the guys didn’t tell me a thing. I think, they understood better than anyone that the only way everyone of us could survive was to stick together. I was keeping an eye on the logbook to spot any suspicious activity on the map, but everything was quiet.

We’ve passed gate sixteen in a complete silence. Keith and Matthias’s dots were still, shining on the other side of the gate. 

“Zimmer, wait.” I caught up on him by the door. “Before we open it, prepare your gun. You too, Saf. I’m sensing something really,  really  wrong there.”

They obeyed unquestioningly. I gripped the hand of my gun and nodded, letting Klaus open the door.

_ And regretted it right away.  _

“Fucking hell!” Zimmer stepped back and turned away. I really wanted to do the same, but I stepped forward instead. What we were able to see, a good forensics expert would call  _ an installation _ . I’d call it a hideously brutal, inhumane desecration. 

Both Giovanni and Jefferson were pinned to the walls by broken and bent titanium struts, face to face, representing some massacrous arch. The pattern resembled the one in Collins’s murder pretty much. When I took a closer look, I realised that it was clearly the same. All three of them were poked right into the heart, and all of them had their eyes burnt out. The only difference was that Collins wasn’t put on display like this. Ten years ago I’d say that we were dealing with a serial maniac, but this was not exactly the case. Here we were dealing with an unpredictable and untraceable serial maniac, strong enough to break shock-resistant locks and bend titanium, and most likely contaminated with some cosmic disease.

I suppressed queasiness and turned back to the guys to see Saf slowly coming closer in a complete astonishment. She covered her mouth with her hands, and I could hear how trembly her breath was. 

“Si... what is it, Si?..” She gasped the air in as if she was going to scream, but she didn’t. Her eyes went so big that it seemed to me that they might fall out. She was looking at the scene, and I could almost feel the nearly hysterical fear she held inside. 

“It’s...” I opened and closed my mouth like a fish, trying to find the correct word. She cried, quietly, painfully, and hid her face in my shoulder. 

“Seems like... erm...” I froze, but a couple seconds later, I put my arm around her shoulders trying to give her some ground. 

“Seems like it’s a message.” I frowned, still looking at the ‘installation’. “Or he is so deranged that he did it just for fun, but the first option seems more logical to me.”

“A message?” Zimmer finally turned back to us. “What makes you think so?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? If we take a look at the placement of the bodies...” I didn’t finish the sentence, as Saf rapidly pushed me in the chest, so I had to step back. I stared at her confused, totally not getting the act. 

“What on Earth is wrong with you?!” She screamed, clenching her fists. I glanced at Zimmer, searching for support, but the look I met totally reflected mine. 

“People died!  _Our friends were killed!_ And you have the balls to launch a forensic expertise here?!” I could understand the reason of this reaction, when I thought about it, but still it wasn’t what I expected. 

“Saf...” I started softly, but she interrupted. 

“No! You sound like a bloody cop! Like you don’t care!” And the next second she was face to face with me, actually attacking me, furiously pounding on my chest with her clenched fists as if she mistook me for a door. 

“Do... you... care?!” And every word was followed by a punch. I recoiled and met the wall with my back, still trying to process what was happening. Of course I realised that it was just a way to deal with her emotions, but I literally stalled, unable to find any words to defend myself or to calm her down. 

“Saf... Safiya!” Zimmer grabbed her from behind and blocked her movements with his long arms to stop her. “Belay that. He’s already had enough. A bloody cop, he is indeed, but Simon is just trying to figure out what happened and what to do now, do you, Fawkes?”

“Aye, I do,” I answered slowly. I looked at him, paralysed, trying to recall a moment when I could have by any occasion told him anything about my past. I was sure I haven’t — I never told anyone from the crew but for Cass,  especially  him — I’m no masochist, I didn’t want any more mocking. Or maybe it was just a speech figure? 

Our eyes met. He looked deadly serious, and his look was so loud that the figure-of-speech thing was no longer an option. 

Saf stopped her attempts to break out of corporal’s steel grip and went on to cry, relaxing in his hands like a ragdoll and once again hiding her face in her palms. Zimmer shook his head, by this gesture clearly telling me to stay where I was, and carefully dragged her to the porthole, where she wouldn’t be able to see the crime scene. I didn’t hear what he was telling her, so I decided to turn my attention towards the bodies again.

  
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to suppress a terrible headache and imagine myself back in the days when I saw pictures like this every next day. I distanced myself and started working. Old habit didn’t let me touch anything with my bare hands, so I fished a paper tissue out of the fanny pack. Though even back then technologies which would let detectives and forensic experts touch the evidence due to the advanced fingerprints recognition system already existed, headquarters of teeny-tiny Lyme Regis, which had decreased his population almost thrice for the last century, didn’t have the facilities, so we were used to working just like in good old forties. Though I’ve never been a proper cop, I’ve visited a lot of homicide scenes, serving for the police to share important information I had. And I took part in examining the crime scenes, which came in extremely handy at the moment.

I took a closer look at Keith’s body and noticed one interesting detail: there was something in his mouth — a piece of fabric, as I could guess — I could spot a corner sticking out. I carefully opened his lips and pulled this thing out. I was right, it was a piece of thin fabric, visibly identical to the material used to make costumes we were wearing. To be exact, it was a lace, which consisted a tracing microchip sewn to the inner side, atop of left overlock stitch. It was almost dry and slightly stained with blood, which meant that it was put there after Jefferson‘s death. I wrapped it into the tissue and put it to the pack. Just to be sure, I carefully rolled up the hem of the upper part of his suit, and found the stitch open, covered in the remains or torn threads.

Why do that? Why would Pierce want us to find it? I definitely wasn’t capable of brainstorming with my head pounding like a campanile, but I thought that the guys might think of something. 

I turned to Giovanni’s body and checked his suit, also finding the lace torn off, but when I carefully opened his mouth, there was nothing. I even looked with a torch, but still, nothing. It was odd, if only...

“Fawkes.” I turned around and faced Zimmer. “What did you cop out?”

I hesitated for a second, and before I opened my mouth to say anything, Klaus sighed. 

“Look. I know exactly who you are, who you used to be, and what you are capable of. I’ll explain later, but now we need a clue.”

He has never looked at me like that before: seriously, with evident respect and even a slight note of apology. I even thought that I might be hallucinating, but still, I replied to my hallucination, deciding to postpone the processing. 

“Aye, it clearly  _ is  _ a message. I suppose, Pierce wants us to do something. He tore the trackers off their suits, one he stuck into Jefferson’s mouth, and the other I couldn’t find.” I sighed and put my ice cold hand on my forehead as if believing that it would help, and dizziness and throbbing would stop. 

“Yes. He wants us to find him.” Corporal raised his eyes on me and looked me straight in the eye. 

_ Of course! _

But for this terrible migraine I would definitely slap my forehead. It was so obvious! 

“So...” I reached out for the journal. “Wait. Last time I checked on the map at gate sixteen. Both of their dots were here...” I grabbed the logbook and opened it quickly. We both looked at the map, already knowing the answer to the unspoken question. The dot was blinking near our gate.

_ He’s here.  _

***

  
When we ran to the gate, where Saf was still trying to calm down, the door opened. We immediately pointed both our guns there, and at the very moment we saw Pierce, we both shot.

Pierce looked different. In fact, he looked terrifying: his skin turned almost purple, with bright veins visible all over. And by ‘bright’ I mean that they were  literally  shining through the skin, as if instead of blood he had melted metal. His eyes went completely red, but that wasn’t all. My bullet hit his shoulder, Zimmer was much better of a marksman than me, and his shot hit Pierce’s neck, right under the jaw. And... nothing really happened. Pierce stepped back at every shot, but he didn’t even bleed. Well, he did, but... it wasn’t blood. It was a dense, bright-golden substance, which literally illuminated. Pierce threw a glance at us and clenched fearfully blanched Saf’s wrist in his grip. Zimmer shot again, seizing the opportunity while Saf wasn’t too close, and this time he hit Pierce’s head, but it didn’t do anything either. He opened the door, threw Saf on the floor, and the very moment we ran towards them, blocked the gate right in front of our noses.

I threw myself at the gate, trying to open it again, but it didn’t work, signalling an error. 

“Fuck! Did you see it?!” Zimmer’s eyes were huge, he was panting heavily, looking at me in a complete shock. I reflected his look, fighting the ringing in my ears. I only nodded, gasping the air. A second after we heard Saf scream behind the door. I tried to enter the code once again, but no reply again. 

At that point I realised that we won’t see her alive again. Seemed like Zimmer did, too. He grabbed my elbow and yanked me backwards. 

“Run!” He hissed. And we both did. 

We sprinted down the corridor. On opening gate fourteen, we heard a loud noise in the back. I turned around, but Zimmer didn’t give me any chance to delay — he literally threw me through the gate fourteen, shutting the door behind us. I heard a shot, then something shattered, as if it was glass. I really didn’t want to believe my ears, but, honestly, I couldn’t lie to myself. It sounded like the porthole shattered into pieces, which meant that now the way towards the southern bay was totally cut off due to deoxygenation in the sector. Klaus didn’t let me catch my breath, pushing me forward, and I obeyed. We ran almost to gate thirteen, when he suddenly pushed me to the left. I got his idea and squeezed myself into the dark service niche, hitting my side on the pipe on the wall, to what my body immediately responded with such a sharp pain somewhere in my abdomen that I started seeing stars. I’ve already forgotten about the wound due to the local anaesthetic, but the pain has inevitably reminded me that it wasn’t permanent. Seemed like I needed a new emergency bandage asap, for I definitely wasn’t ready for running while aching all over. Unfortunately, it was a wee bit difficult to find one in a service niche. 

There wasn’t much space in there, but Zimmer managed to jam himself inside and hence cover me with his body, draping his bald head with a black hood of his costume to try to be invisible in the darkness of the niche. It could actually work, for there was very little light in the corridor at this side of the ship. 

“Shhh!” He hissed, as I groaned, trying not to scream in pain. I suffocated, barely able to hear him. 

“Please, Simon!” He grabbed my own hand and pressed it to my mouth. I got that and tried to quiet my sharp, fitful breath. Not right away, but it worked, and we went so silent that in this silence I could hear the low ringing in my ears, my own crazy heartbeat and almost nothing more. 

About a minute passed, when the door signalled open. Slow, heavy steps were moving closer, and soon, from my point of view, hidden behind Zimmer’s shoulder, I saw Pierce. He stopped at gate thirteen, breathing heavily, almost grunting, and slowly looked around, holding his blank red eyes at every inch he was scanning. His eyes stopped at us, and I literally stopped breathing. I couldn’t help but notice Zimmer do the same thing. A few long seconds passed before Pierce growled and hit the lock at gate thirteen. It buzzed electrically and went off. Then Pierce pushed the doors aside, and they gave in, creaking miserably. He moved forward as if he hasn’t just broken multi-ton doors with his bare hands.

We both froze. I could feel Zimmer’s body shudder, as we were literally crammed into each other. But I couldn’t blame him, as I was shaking like a leaf myself. My legs barely held my own weight, and the only thing which helped me stay up was lack of personal space — Zimmer was my crutch on the front, and the wall didn’t let me fall from the back. 

I caught corporal’s shocked look, and slowly pointed my chin at my fanny pack. He nodded, and I slowly fished the logbook out. The closed space didn’t let me move properly, but I somehow managed to open the map with my shaking hands. Pierce was heading towards engines. Whatever he was planning, we just  had to  head the opposite direction. Luckily for us, communications were exactly where we had to go, both directionally and logically. I let a long, painful breath out and leaned my head on the wall, closing my eyes against my will.

Zimmer slowly stepped aside, and I, having lost my crutch, gradually slipped down the wall. I tried to hold on, but all the power has left me as if I was a battery which needed charging. 

“Fawkes...” Klaus whispered, slightly shaking my shoulder, “Come on, mate, you’ll rest later. It’s not the time... Fawkes!”

I could scarcely hear him, and couldn’t really retrieve control over my body. 

“Right... just... gimme a sec...” The pain and the general numbness didn’t let me speak properly. Klaus wanted to take the logbook, but stopped to look at his hand, which appeared to be covered in blood. 

“Shit, man... this is not good. This is not good at all...” And the next moment I felt his hand on my abdomen.

_ Mine, then. Well... _

I realised that the haemorrhage must have started again. I did my best to pull myself together, and, surprisingly, it even worked. 

“Take the logbook and move to comms,” I said hoarsely, “I’ll be a burden.”

“Shut it and get up already, no way I’ll leave you here.”

“Jesus, Zimmer...” I scoffed, “I’ll get both of us killed. But you won’t do as you’re told, will you?”

“Hell no.”

“A’ight. Help me up, then.”

“That’s better. Come on.” He took the logbook, looked at the map for a couple of seconds, shove it back into my hand, then put my other arm across his shoulder and pulled me up. I failed to hold a muted moan, but we had literally no time for suffering, so I gritted my teeth, and we went on. 

“Beat it, Fawkes, stop pretending to be weak. You won’t fool me.”

It was even kind of nice of him to lie to me like this. Who would have thought that Klaus Zimmer could ever be nice to me, even while trying to save our lives?  _ Well, the longer you live, the more you see. _

  
On reaching gate ten I felt a bit better. It was enough for me to keep moving on my own, touching the wall with one hand just in case and pressing the wound with the other. We turned into junction two and stopped. I leaned my back on the wall and opened the logbook. 

“Where is he?” Zimmer asked nervously. 

“Heading upper. If he’ll turn the engine off, we’re dead, Klaus.” I raised my eyes at him.

“Oh, yeah, and we’ll be hunky-dory if he won’t!” He chuckled with sore irritation. I couldn’t argue, really. There wasn’t any chance that we could survive this journey. A big question was whether we’d be able to make it till tomorrow. I wasn’t really sure about myself, and Zimmer, no matter how strong he was and how much stamina he had, was just a toy for Pierce on this lost ship. Alone, he also wouldn’t hold on for long. 

I sighed and nodded. 

“Right. Tomayto-tomahto.” I looked at the map again. “Well, six gates and one junction to go.”

“Are you okay? Shall we take a break?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you? ‘Cause you sweat like hell, Schneewittchen.”

“Do I?” I rose my hand and touched my forehead, confused. He was right, actually. I must have missed that moment due to all the other factors like hardly bearable pain all over my body, or numbing powerlessness which was increasing with every step I took. I combed my hair back, taking it away from my face, and yes, the hair was already wet. 

“Dammit...” I remembered the detective-sergeant being shot. We also couldn’t get to the hospital, so I watched her die till the very end. I’d never guess that this experience would also come in handy, but surprisingly it did, and things did not seem positive to me. I carefully raised the top part of the suit and looked down at the bandage, moving it a bit to see the wound itself. It wasn’t very deep, but it was long, though the bleeding seemed to have stopped. I realised why I didn’t notice most of the symptoms right away: adrenaline was doing its job, so sleepiness, perspiration, troubled breathing and weakness in general were pushed back. The two things I did notice were frozen limbs and growing stupidity, or, in other words, my deprived of blood and oxygen brain struggling to function even more efficiently than usual. 

“Shall we?” I moved on, and Zimmer followed. With every step I took it grew more and more difficult to move, as if I was stuck in quicksand. But I realised that if I would have stood any longer, I would completely lose my ability to move and would never make it to the comms at all.

We passed two more gates before disturbingly odd things started happening to me. Like, one moment I was entering the code on the door, and the very next second I was already shifting my weight onto the wall in the middle of the corridor with my eyes closed, and Zimmer was nagging me to go with a mixture of anxiety and irritation in his low voice. Blacking out definitely wasn’t on my wish list, but since it started happening a bit too often, I might need to start getting used to it. The situation only worsened by the fact that every time Zimmer was trying to hold me, it somehow disturbed the wound, and pain slowed me down even more.

God knows how confused I was when I once again opened my eyes and found myself lying on the floor in communications with Zimmer sitting by my side. 

“If this is your ‘fine’, then I dread to know what ‘like shit’ looks like.”

I tried to get up but failed. 

“Stay still,” Zimmer said, “I’ve had enough of carrying you like a bride, don’t want you to die so my effort would go to waste.”

I chuckled, but tried once again, and this time I managed to sit, moving slightly backwards to find the wall with my back. 

“You’re as nice as usual,” I exhaled, “I thought you wouldn’t be shitty anymore.”

“And I thought you wouldn’t weigh a quintal. Since when string beans like you are heavy as fuck?”

“I’m not a... Ugh. Whatever.”

I pulled the logbook out of the bag and in about a minute finally found a pen. 

“You do understand that I’m done, don’t you?” I said. Zimmer stalled for a few seconds, as if trying to avoid the truth or thinking of something snappy to say, but in the end he just nodded. 

“I do,” he replied quietly, “It’s hard to miss, you know, by the look of yours.”

“Right. Then I’d prefer not to look in the mirror.”

I looked at the wall clock, gathered all my strength, thoughts and remains of memory and started writing. 

_ 8:03 pm GMT _

_ There’re two of us, Zimmer and me. Pierce is invincible, at least resistant to bullets.  _

_ He killed Saf. Her track went out the ship. Giovanni n Jefferson also dead. We’re in com, getting to upload the data. Pierce went to upper.  _

Right after I wrote it, the sound went totally off. Klaus and I looked at each other confused, as if asking whether it really happened. Pierce turned the engine off. 

For five months of our voyage we have never heard a silence like this — the sound of engines was constant, we heard it twenty four hours a day, and it never stopped. Until now. And now we realised that it was quite loud, actually, as the silence, which covered the place, was literally deafening. 

Zimmer cleared his throat. 

“Wow...” he said, “I’ve already forgot what silence is like.”

“Aye,” I nodded, looking at the map. Pierce stayed in upper for some reason. I thought he might be waiting for us to come back there to turn the engine back on. 

“You know, Fawkes, you don’t sound terrified.”

“Why should I?”

“Isn’t it scary? Knowing that you are going to die.”

I scoffed. 

“Death is where we’ll all end up one day or another. I’m not afraid of dying, Klaus. I’m terrified of not knowing what’s expecting me. Though I’ve always considered myself a coward.”

“Oh, you’re anything but a coward, Simon.” He swung his head. “You’re too clever to be one. Much cleverer than me.”

“No doubt,” I chuckled. 

“Oh, and also you’re a dick.”

“I know. Fascinating, right? We’ve got so much in common!”

“Fuck you.”

We both laughed quietly, but the pain quickly shut me up. 

“A’ight.” I slightly slapped my hips, pulling myself together. “I need to upload. Wanna help?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really.”

Klaus got up and gave me his hand. I sighed, put the logbook into the bag so that it wouldn’t be in the way, and grabbed his hand with both of mine. 

“Careful,” he said and gently pulled me. I thought I was going to cry — I was so tired of that pain already, and still every time I moved or tensed it would spread all over my body. With a desperate moan, I managed to scrape myself up, but my legs refused to obey, so I tumbled on Zimmer’s chest. He seemed to be quite ready for that, for not only he didn’t step back, but clenched my shoulder supportively so that I didn’t fall. 

“Are we good?” He asked. 

“ _ We? _ ” I chuckled. “What are we, a married couple? Yes, love, we’re good.”

He snorted.

“Is it some kind of a coping mechanism?” 

“I guess.”

He helped me to the communications panel, and, relieved, I planted myself into the seat. I switched the board computer into the active mode and put the logbook onto the transmission plate. The uploading began. 

“Oi, Klaus, is there a first aid kit in comms?” I reclined and turned the seat to face him. 

“Must be. I’ll check.”

“Thanks.”

I sighed, laid my hands on my stomach and bent my knee, placing my foot on a seat. This way it didn’t hurt that much. The only thing left for us was to wait. Nothing’s worse than just sitting and waiting for the end, whether it comes from inside or outside the ship. 

At that moment I got lost in thought again.

Probably, a man in a state of mine should be worrying about what he succeeded in, and what he failed to do in his life. Unfinished business, dreams yet to come true, promises not kept. But I did all I could. I’ve lived a fine life, I guess. Made a ton of mistakes, been unsuccessfully picking a lock on the door to happiness with a corkscrew all the time, — _oh, bravo, Simon, what a swanky metaphor of occasional alcoholism!_ —  but I also did plenty of good things. Still trying to do what’s right. I’ve never had a family, been alone for the last ten years, so I had no necessity in making far-fetched plans. I’ve just been serving my penance, and, probably, I’ve finally gained forgiveness. I hope so. Can’t feel it yet, but soon I should. Maybe not now. In the end, I always knew that it’s not God who punishes us — we do it to ourselves. So have I forgiven myself? A tough question. Though I’ve definitely taken a fresh look at my own life.

I turned my head towards the sound of Zimmer’s steps. All sounds were so loud and clear now, after the engine went down, that it might even do us good. If Pierce was going to visit us here, we wouldn’t miss it.

“You okay?” Zimmer handed me a small bag with a red cross on it. 

“Are we divorced now?” I made a theatrically sad face, looking up at him. 

“ _ We  _ okay?” Zimmer grimaced mockingly in reply, sitting down right in front of me. 

“ We  are,” I nodded, satisfied. 

I raised my thin neoprene shirt again and slowly removed the old bandage. From my point of view, it seemed like literally everything was covered in blood. Judging by Zimmer’s face, it was not that far from truth. 

“Jesus Christ, how are you even alive?” He asked, and cleared his throat awkwardly, meeting my ironical look. 

“That’s a million dollar question,” I scoffed, taking an antiseptic wipe from the bag. “Though it’s not as bad as it looks. I suppose.”

“Uh-huh...” Zimmer didn’t seem to believe it. He got up and loomed over the console. 

“We should send a manual signal, I suppose.”

“Agreed. Would you?”

He didn’t answer, already starting to enter the code of the emergency. 

“CX870 speaking. We’ve got an emergency. Does anyone read me?” He pressed something, and went on to enter things into the computer.

While he was trying to reach out, I wiped the wound and found a similar bandage in the bag only to realise that my hands were so weak and shook so much that I would barely be able to correctly attach all the active points of the biochip bandage to their places. I sighed quietly with great irritation and closed my eyes just to give myself a break. I felt so exhausted that I didn’t want to open them again. If I could only get at least fifteen minutes of sleep... It felt like waking up at 6:30, when you try to postpone your alarm clock as far as possible in an attempt to get five more minutes.

“Fawkes!” I felt a strong grip on my arm and opened my eyes, taking a sharp, short breath. Zimmer was standing right in front of me, seemingly feeling the pulse on my wrist. His face looked formidable and yet worried, as if he was only trying to look strict, but in fact was pretty scared. “I turned away for a second, and you’re already dying. Stop that, we ain’t done yet.”

Only then I realised that it was a trap, and my skin went covered in goosebumps on this sudden realisation. My dying body was lying to me, trying to give up in the most painless and peaceful way. If Zimmer wouldn’t have interrupted, I might have died without even noticing it. Things were becoming more and more serious. I exhaled tremblingly and nodded. 

“Listen, Simon, I understand how awful you must be feeling, but get a grip of yourself. You’ve always told everyone to be strong, now I’m saying that to  you .” Zimmer looked me straight in the eye, and I tried to catch and process every word he said. “You’re powerless, you’re in pain, you want it all to end, I get it, really, I do. But don’t you dare, you hear me? _Don’t you dare._ ” He squeezed my wrist, and I, obeying some subconscious idea, clenched my freezing fist as hard as I could, feeling warm blood stream towards it. Zimmer nodded and let go of my hand. 

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” 

I frowned, shook my head and sat a bit more straight.

“What is it with the bandage?”

“Tried. Can’t.” I showed him my shaking fingers, and he sighed. 

“Oh you poor damned thing,” he exhaled and took the bandage, looming over me, “What am I, a babysitter to you?”

“Apparently,” I smiled tiredly, touching the back of the seat with my head. “Not that I enjoy it more than you do.”

“Uh-huh. That’s exactly what I see in your pleased face.”

“Terribly pleased,” I chuckled.

Zimmer unwrapped the bandage and took the wipe to once again clean the space. 

“Hope that as soon as it works you’ll stop looking so miserable.”

“We’ll see,” I replied, closing my eyes again. 

Zimmer slowly attached the bandage and smoothed the edges. 

“What did I tell you?”

“What?” I asked in a wee voice even I was surprised to hear. 

“You can die later, not on my watch. But now get yourself together.”

I sighed, still without moving. 

“Am I not allowed to blink anymore?”

“Didn’t know blinking took minutes. Look at me.”

He sounded dead serious, so I didn’t dare disobey. 

“If you’d felt your heart rate at that moment, you wouldn’t let yourself do that anymore,” he said, when I looked at him. Then he activated the bandage, and it has immediately brought the desired relief. Pain started to fade, and only then I realised how hard it had been to breathe. 

“Better?” He asked. 

“Ugh... yeah, much better. Thanks.”

I sat, elbows on my knees, and ran both hands over my sharpened face. Zimmer softly patted my shoulder to cheer me up.

“So, we’re gonna need to make a recording when the uploading is done, in order to start sending it anywhere it could reach,” he said, turning back to the console. “I’ve sent a repetitive mayday out, hope someone would catch it.”

“Right.”

I slowly got up, holding onto about everything I could reach, and approached the logbook, opening it without interrupting the process. Pierce stayed in upper, moving from one console to the other. 

“What the hell takes it so long?” I whispered, frowning at the percentage screen. 

“Maybe the connection worsened due to the engines failure?” Zimmer assumed, coming closer and also looking at the screen. 

“Makes sense. But that would mean it’ll take quite a while.”

“Yes. Is there anything we can do?”

I turned to him to give him a venomous glare. 

“I don’t know, I’m a priest, not a mechanic.”

“A cop,” he said. I froze for a second, processing an unexpected correction. 

“I’m not... ugh, well. Fair enough. But still, I’m no mechanic, pal,  _ you _ are. Is there anything we can do?”

“Fair enough,” he mirrored, looking down awkwardly for a moment. “Can’t tell right away. I need to think.”

We went silent, and while he was looking at the console, I didn’t take my eyes off him, processing the question which has been bothering me for the last hour maybe. Eventually, he turned his head to me. 

“What?” He asked. 

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“About my past. I’ve never told anyone. How did you know?”

He sighed and held his eyes on mine. 

“Well... I was the one who helped creating the list of the crew. So, it was me who recommended you.”

I frowned, puzzled, waiting for him to continue. 

“Yes, I know your superintendent, Coleman. We used to be friends, so I visited her. I was looking for a vicar for Cass. I needed her, and she refused to sign in without an Anglican priest. So, I turned to the one who knew exactly how to choose people. And she led me to you. Told me your story, brought your profile, so... I thought that I’d kill two birds with one stone. I’d do as Cass asked and get a smart guy on board. Who would have known that you would appear to be such a prick?”

At that moment I was really perplexed, but it all started making sense. 

“Wait a minute,” I said, “I thought you hated me. Every time we met you were acting as if you were going to throw me out of the ship. I don’t understand...”

I put my hand on my forehead, trying to make connections in this big puzzling joke. 

“I wish you could see your face now, Fawkes,” Zimmer chuckled. “I don’t hate you and never did. Why would I? Have you ever done anything bad to me? No. I didn’t hang out with you only because you’re a weirdo.”

“A weirdo?” I raised my eyebrows, though I don’t think I might be more surprised at that point. 

“Aren’t you? Always silent, always playing your cloak-and-dagger, and this look of yours... I mean, the very first time I heard your voice was about a week or two after we left Earth, don’t you find this creepy?”

“I, uh...” I went silent, not knowing what to say in my defence. “Right.”

  
I looked at the map again, finding Pierce for the second time already moving from cafeteria to the trash chute. 

“What the hell is he doing?” I asked. I was even happy to change the topic, though the thing I switched my attention to wasn’t as good as it might be. 

Zimmer looked at the map from behind my shoulder. 

“This is quite a route he’s built,” he noticed. 

“Uh-huh,” I agreed. “If he’s getting rid of provisions, he must be a fool. If he’s imitating it to attract our attention, he’s just an idiot.”

“Why?” 

I turned around and gave Zimmer another mockingly poisonous look. 

“Why what? Do you really think we’ll need it to celebrate Christmas, just you and me?”

“Right. We won’t.”

Zimmer looked at the map once again. 

“Right! Of course!” He impulsively slapped the console, hence making me wince. “We’ve got an emergency generator two gates from security. If I launch it, maybe we’ll be able to upload faster.”

“You’re not going to go there, are you?” I tensed. “It’s just between cafeteria and chute. If he sees you, you’re dead.”

“Do we have a choice, Fawkes?” He looked very seriously. I frowned, thinking it over. Seemed like we didn’t. 

“I’ll be careful. Be back before you start to miss me, I promise,” he smirked, ruining all the seriousness at once. 

I scoffed disapprovingly. 

“What shall I do?” 

“Well, keep breathing, first of all.” He started searching through drawers. 

“What are you looking for?”

“A transmitter,” he replied. “I want to see Pierce.”

I nodded and slowly sat back to the seat for my legs were barely able to hold my weight. 

“Gotcha!” Zimmer closed the drawer, holding a small screen in his hand, and got up. 

“So, I’ll be off,” he said, turning it on. “Stay aware. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Right,” I said, “Be careful, pal.”

“I will,” he nodded and headed towards the gate. A moment, and he was already gone.

_ Please, Big guy. If you’re still there... Lead his way. _

I sighed and crossed my arms, laying my head on the back of the seat. Oh, how much I hated waiting! I mean, I’ve always been capable of it, but there was quite little pleasure in it.

I turned towards the panel and gave the loading line a hateful look. Well, at least we had purpose. Without it, waiting for the end to come would be even more exasperating. 

I raised my eyes to the ceiling and sighed again. Now that the pain has passed, it was much easier to think clearly. A minute of complete silence, and I got lost in thought again.

We’re thousands of thousands of miles away from Earth, and almost half less far from any other human-generated cosmic object. What are we expecting from a mayday? It took us almost half a year to reach this point, how are emergency vessels supposed to reach us before we get burned to ashes by the local sun or before Pierce kills us? We’ve got, how much, like, couple hours?

_ Nonsense.  _

I sighed and closed my eyes, thinking about the ways we could have possibly prevented this. Maybe if I would insist on my suspicions towards Pierce, we could isolate him and stop him from detaching the bay. I was definitely sure that it was him who did it. But, well, it would be impossible to lock him up, considering how he broke the doors. So, was this inevitable? I guess. Why did I not foresee this?

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

I flinched, opening my eyes and facing Saf sitting by my side.

_ The hell?.. _

“If you hadn’t left me there...” she said, turning her eyes to me. “Why didn’t you do anything?”

I sat straight and turned towards her. 

“How...” I started, suppressing a block down my throat. 

“Exactly. How?” She frowned. “Do you realise that but for you all this wouldn’t have happened? I would be alive.”

“Yes, Si. Me, too.” I looked behind Saf’s back and saw Cass. She was standing in the farthest corner of the room with her arms crossed. “If you’d listened to me, if we’d left earlier...”

“I...” I choked on my own words, feeling it impossible to say a thing in my defence. Indeed it was difficult to defend myself when there was no explanation. They were right.

The rational part of my brain which screamed that I must have passed out again was barely audible behind the panic. I was suffocating, something was scratching my head inside, as if the guilt was actually physical, trying to find its way out. I tried to get up, tried to move, but my body was petrified. Saf got up and stood right in front of me. She grasped the fabric on my neck and squeezed it, pulling towards herself.

“It’s you who sentenced us all to death,” she hissed, leaning towards me. “I don’t know whether Zimmer doesn’t see it or prefers to deny. But he is smart, he will understand. He  will  leave you alone for what you’ve done.”

I opened my mouth to say something, to tell her how sorry I was, I wanted to explain, but I couldn’t. I felt Saf’s hand on my neck, and tried to do something, tried to raise my arm to push her away, but another pair of thin, but strong hands gripped my arms from behind. Somehow I was standing, though I didn’t remember getting up. I took a glance around and figured out that we weren’t in comms anymore. We were in some kind of dark room, and I could see no walls, as if the space was boundless. A sharp knee bumped into my spine, Cass pulled my arms and strongly held them together behind my back. I was absolutely powerless in their hands, literally feeling no strength in my limbs. Saf clenched her fingers on my neck, blocking the air stream. I swallowed and opened my mouth, trying to gasp some air. 

“Saf...” I said hoarsely. “I’m so... so sorry...”

“Who are you lying to?” I heard Cass’s voice from behind. “You let Claire die back then, and now you did it again. And again.”

_ Wait a minute... I didn’t tell Cass the detective sergeant’s name... _

The grip on my neck became harder, though I saw that Saf wasn’t holding me anymore. I raised my hand and touched my neck, trying to set myself free, but there was nothing. I was suffocating with no actual reason. No. In fact, my own hand was smothering me. I tried to let go, but couldn’t. My own hand wasn’t obeying.

“That’s right. You will punish yourself till the very last moment, you see,” Cass said, and I raised my eyes to see her right in front of me. I was standing on my knees, desperately struggling for air. 

“You’re very smart, Si. You understand everything, I know that. So how does it feel to know that you’d let everyone you’ve ever cared about down?” 

Saf squatted in front of me, slightly touching my cheek with her fingertips, brushing the hair away from my face.

“Why would you do that to me?..” she whispered, and her face changed to Cass’s. 

“Why would you do that to me?”

At some point, I could scarcely say who I saw in front of me: their faces changed so fast, repeating one single question I was struggling to answer, that it felt like I saw someone who was a mixture of their crying faces.

Their voices blended into a deafening cacophony of blame. I felt hot and cold at the same time, my weak body was shaking, I couldn’t breathe due to the spasm in my throat. This was a true torture, as if I’ve already gotten into a hell loop. But I didn’t dare to try and stop it. I was getting what I deserved, clearly. My face was burning, as if tears which were streaming down it were not water but liquid fire. I was in agony. My heart was pounding heavily, crazily in my chest, as if trying to jump out. 

_ “Oh, Angel, why would you do that to me?..” _

I froze, staring at the face in front of me. It was neither Cass, nor Saf. It was Claire. She was the only one to call me that name, it was our thing. She used to say that I reminded her of an Angel her gramma would tell her stories about. She used to say that she recognised the Angel right away as she first saw me. 

What did her Angel do to her?

_ He did nothing. _

When she was dying, when she was suffering, he sat and watched her die. What kind of angel was he?

I wanted to reach out for her, tried to touch her, but she was so close and yet so far, and I couldn’t. She was crying. And I was, too. 

“I’m sorry...” I whispered with my lips only. 

I touched her hand with my fingertips, but she jumped away. 

“No!!!” she screamed, pressing her hand to her chest, as if I burned her. “Don’t touch me!”

I still couldn’t breathe, and my body was convulsing, tears were literally melting my face. It felt like the agony lasted for hours, days already, my heartbeat turned into a constant, unbearable pounding, as if I had a mad drummer inside. I couldn’t but scream, but only wheezing left my seizured throat.

And suddenly it all stopped. 

It felt like I stopped existing. Claire’s face was slowly fading away, bathing me in silenced darkness. I had no body, no voice, only my puzzled consciousness.

“Fawkes!..” called the darkness, and I didn’t recognise the voice. Well, it didn’t even sound like a voice, it was just a realisation. 

“Simon!..”

I needed to do something, but I couldn’t understand what exactly...

_  
Simon! _

I took a sharp, crampy breath and opened my eyes abruptly, seeing nothing but a bright light. Pain overflowed my whole body like a wave. I tried to take a deep breath, but started suffocating hysterically again. I wanted to protect myself anyhow, just not to feel that again, but someone caught my wrists, forcing them still. I felt as if I was about to scream, but I couldn’t, choking on the air. Strong hands gripped me and pressed towards a wide chest.

“Jesus Christ, Fawkes, shut up!”

The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite figure out who did it belong to. My brain just turned off, leaving my agonising body uncontrolled. My movements were blocked, and it actually seemed to help. I managed to stabilise my breathing more or less, and only then I finally recognised the room as comms, and the chest I was pressed into as Zimmer’s. His breath sounded startled.

“What the fuck, Simon?” He asked persistently but quietly, as if afraid to press me too hard. In fact, there was no need in that, there was nothing he could do that could make it worse. The hell I went through was too much already. I could swear I could hear my own backbone, my fighter’s spirit crack. A moment or two, and I was already broken. 

I covered my face with my shaking hands and growled, so, so unbearably angry with myself. Hot tears stood up in my eyes, and I clenched my fingers into the skin as if trying to rip my own face off. 

I was feeling like I was underwater. The sounds went muted, all of them but for my heart’s sick pace. Panic pushed the rage away when I once again felt something press my neck. I clutched on this something, which felt like an arm, with my fingers, trying to put it away, but it pressed harder. A few long seconds after, I leaned back, unwittingly rolling my eyes, and finally relaxed, and right after this I was free. A couple seconds of blackout, and I started coughing reflexively, focusing my eyes on Zimmer.

“Bloody hell!” He said, staring at me with his huge eyes. 

“Did you... did you just choke me?!” I reflected his look, still coughing. But actually, I couldn’t disagree that it helped. My consciousness has definitely returned, and this panic attack, or whatever it was, has passed, leaving me shocked, trembling and exhausted, but at least sane. 

“What the fuck was I supposed to do?! You scared the shit outta me!”

Fair enough. If I were him, what would I do?  _ Well, I probably wouldn’t do what he did, I’d just panic. _

“How... how long ago did you return?..” I rubbed my neck, swallowing painfully, and looked at the wall clock. 

_ 8:28 _

“I dunno, about five minutes ago... Shit, Fawkes, you had only one task! Was it that difficult?!” 

I rubbed my eyes with my fingers. 

“Did I fail to breathe?”

“Hell yes you did. More than that, you failed even to beat your damned heart. I literally had to do it for you.” He sighed, slowly calming down.

Cold shivers went down my back. I looked down and found an injection patch on my right forearm.

“What’s that?” I asked, carefully touching it. 

“An adrenaline patch from the kit,” he said. “When I returned, you were kinda dead. Maybe. At least I didn’t find any pulse. So, I thought I might give it a try. A little bit of this and that. Gladly, it worked.”

It kind of explained the new weird feeling in my body. I couldn’t explain it, couldn’t give it a name, but it felt like something was  really wrong.  I was sure I’ve never felt like that. Probably, because my heart hasn’t stopped before.

“Yikes,” I said uncomfortably. 

“Exactly,” Zimmer agreed. “Anyway, how are you feeling?”

“Oh, don’t ask that.” I put my hand on my chest and took a deep breath. “I guess adrenaline is working, for I definitely feel quite alive, but... Ugh...”

“What was it like? I mean, you literally died. Is there anything?”

I raised my eyes at him and disapprovingly shook my head. 

“I wish I hadn’t found out,” I said. “Guess I was on my way to hell when you yanked me back.”

“Hell?” Zimmer looked confused. “But... aren’t you supposed to go to heaven? Like... you’re a priest, right?”

I would want to reply with some kind of a sharp joke, but something really dark rose deep inside me, something terrifying, like a misty memory of what I went through, but more of a physical one. I felt my whole body shiver harder than my new “normal”. He must have noticed it. 

“Oh, damn... sorry man, I didn’t want to...”

“It’s alright. Just... don’t remind me, okay?”

“Alright.”

I once again rubbed my face with my hands trying to pull myself together. 

“So, what’ve we got? Did you turn the generator on?”

“I did,” he replied. “Saw Pierce twice, but was lucky enough to avoid contact. And as you can see, the uploading is almost over.”

“Ah... great.” I turned my chair towards the screen. “I shall make the recording, then?”

“Yep, maybe in five minutes. Ah, and...” he stalled. 

“And what?” I tensed. 

“You know, Pierce has left his tracker in the cafeteria. We can’t track him now.”

I looked at him as if he was asking me to do a backflip.

“What? And you’re telling me this only now?!”

“Well, yes! You didn’t seem to be in a condition before.”

“A-a-argh, bugger!” 

I hid my face in my hands, trying to figure out the action plan. Well, not exactly, ‘cause there was not much we could do, but at least I needed to digest the information. 

“Okay, look. I’ll be on guard, if we can put it that way. And you, work with the recording as soon as it’s possible. Okay?”

“It’s suicide, Klaus. As soon as Pierce finds us, we’re dead. There’s nothing you can do to stop him.” I shook my head. 

“Okay, have you got a better plan?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Shut up then. I think I’ll be able to hold him up a little. How much time do you need to make a recording?”

“Dunno. About two minutes, maybe. Five, maximum.”

“Good.”

Zimmer got up and moved towards the gate. 

“Wait!” I said, turning my chair to face him. “Where are you going?”

He stopped and turned to me. 

“To the position. He can appear in any minute, right? I’d like to be ready.”

I sighed slowly and nodded. 

“Zimmer...” I started. We both knew that as soon as he leaves the room, we’ll never see each other again. I understood that I needed to say something, but I couldn’t find any words. He was patiently waiting. 

“We can do this. Just be strong as you always are.”

He came closer and gave me his hand to shake. I accepted the invitation, holding it quite strongly. 

“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

He smiled and nodded. 

“And you, reverend Douche. We’ve made quite a good team.”

I returned him a smile and let go. Zimmer found a gun on his belt and headed for the gate. 

  
With the silent closure bleep, watching the doors hide Zimmer in the corridor, I turned back to the screen with a heavy heart. As he left, I immediately felt really vulnerable and unprotected, and with every passing second the fear of the end grew stronger.

It’s bullshit, what I said about not being afraid of dying. After what I saw, I definitely was so terrified that my hands grew colder and colder, and my whole body tensed, covering in goosebumps at every sound.

The loading beeped finished, and I slowly got up, setting the system up for the emergency recording. On finishing, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to get a grip of myself. Only I opened my mouth, I heard three deafening shots behind the door. Then the mechanism on the lock signalled blocked. The noise of fight was so clear that my guts literally froze, the spasm in my throat didn’t let me even breathe, let alone talking. I slowly turned around. The door was still closed, but Zimmer’s scream behind it pushed me to hurry. I did my best to suppress the sore panic and pressed “rec”. 

“For the record. December 9th, 2097. My name is Simon Ethan Fawkes...”


	4. After

_**Boom!** _

_** Boom! ** _

_** Boom! ** _

The door creaked, deforming, but still wasn’t opening. Pierce started trying to break in at the last seconds of my recording. He must be playing with me, ‘cause no doubt he could just rip the door off just as he did with those in the corridor, but for some reason he kept smashing it without getting in.  Well, if he wanted to scare me, he did great. 

I couldn’t get up from the seat, for I stopped feeling my legs just a few minutes back, so I just clutched my own shoulders, trying to hide behind the back of the chair I was sitting in. Though the longer he knocked and the weaker I became, the less I felt the fear — it was gradually transforming into dark, doomed melancholy. Moreover, it has become really hot, the ship started shaking, probably falling to the centre of the galaxy. At that moment the end was so close I could almost touch it. 

The noise of shaking, burning from the outside metal grew so loud that I could barely hear the knocking. Well, tomayto-tomahto, actually, but, honestly, not that I cared much what exactly was going to kill me. It was just one moment when I stopped panicking, just one single moment of realisation and acceptance — there was absolutely nothing else I could do, so why bother?

I opened the logbook once again. My hands were shaking along with the ship, I barely had strength to hold the journal, but one thought refused to leave my mind. I felt my insides go weightless, realising that the ship was already falling in the gravity field of the star, which seemed so promising just about eight hours ago. Zero-g was taking over. Well, it was going to be over in minutes, but at least I wasn’t going to feel it. At last, what used to be Pierce would die with me. 

I squeezed the pen in my hand and let a long, desperate breath out. I felt as if it was the last.

I’ve come all this way to change, to leave my old habits, my old me in the past, I wanted to help... but apparently, I didn’t succeed. Though only now I realise how attached we’ve all been to each other. Probably, we didn’t want to accept it, or just didn’t notice, but even with Zimmer I felt this connection and relation I didn’t know I was capable of after what happened to Claire.

Everything has a beginning, and everything has an end. So does life. I realise how cliché it must sound, but really, we don’t usually take it seriously until we have to. Blessed be those who yet have the chance to feel the life as it is. After every end comes a beginning. What do they say, “ _ it’s always darkest before the dawn” _ ? 

So... not for me. Not for the guys who died heroically today. But somewhere over the Earth, where those who will never see us again are...

_Dawn will rise._


End file.
